Zachary Moore (Photo courtesy Zachary Moore)
Zachary Moore
MNRM student, University of Manitoba (2020–2024)
Zachary Moore, Weston Family Conservation Science Fellow at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), will tell you that conservation theory is for the birds.
While attending the University of Toronto and majoring in evolutionary biology and ecology, he completed two independent theses focused on theoretical populations and community ecology. This study included using invertebrate communities to test how different human and environmental impacts agitations could affect the dynamics of different systems.
“I thought that research was interesting and I really liked the modeling side of things, but I thought that the issues we were looking at were largely too theoretical for my taste. They didn’t really have any applications that I could see coming out of them immediately,” he says.
Looking to satisfy his hunger for real-world application, Zachary spent the next year working in labs. He then attended Niagara College to obtain a graduate certificate for ecosystem restoration.
“I got a more hands-on view of what’s being done on the ground and, based off that experience, I applied for a job with NCC out west here in Alberta. I was lucky enough to get an internship with NCC.”
After completing his internship, Zachary continued to work with NCC, taking on more data-driven projects and expanding his knowledge and experience doing the hands-on conservation work he loves doing.
“When I heard about the fellowship, I thought that this is a really good fit for me. Its population ecology research, it’s with a species group that I haven’t yet worked with — birds — and it’s a chance to stay involved with NCC,” he says. “I realized that the program was really fitting with my interests because it wasn’t just researched focused, but looking at other factors in environmental sciences. I like the idea of getting a more diverse background as opposed to just focusing specifically on the academic research.”
Zachary is studying grassland songbird communities in response to difference grazing regimes on NCC properties.
“The area that I work in is the Waterton Park Front and it has it has one of the highest concentrations of diverse NCC properties and one of the highest concentrations of grazing leases and so we have a ton of different ranchers doing a ton of different things on our land,” he says. “The idea is that we could use the bird communities as an indicator of the impact that the different grazing regimes have on the landscape, and we could use that information to advise future managements.”
This research will help NCC and ranchers develop a grazing strategy that could benefit threatened species of birds. Grassland bird populations have shown steeper, more geographically widespread and more consistent decline than any other category of North American species.
“Grasslands in and of themselves are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, if not the most threatened ecosystem in the world,” says Zachary. “With grassland songbirds being one of the fastest declining groups of birds, it’s two-fold.”
By changing his own habitat, Zachary is hopeful that his new surroundings and this fellowship experience will help open doors and his perspective on how we conserve land for species in Canada.
“It’s been a learning curve. I grew up in Toronto my whole life and now I’m living in southwestern Alberta. It’s a completely different culture and it’s just really interesting to see how those two things can mix,” he says. “I’m really happy to be on the forefront of an NCC science program like this.”
